Remembering the Boys of Pointe du Hoc

By Craig Shirley

Thursday, June 06, 2024

 

Eighty years ago, on June 6, 1944, Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy in a history-altering battle for the future of humanity.

 

Forty years later, President Ronald Reagan stood on the lonely and silent cliffs of Pointe du Hoc overlooking the combat zone, addressing an audience that included the queen of England, the king of Norway, the prime minister of Canada, and surviving veterans of the D-Day invasion. They stormed the beaches to save the world from the scourge of Nazism. They were once boys but by then aging men.

 

In his book Overlord, Max Hastings simply said, “The struggle for Normandy was the decisive western battle of the Second World War, the last moment at which the German army might conceivably have saved Hitler from catastrophe.” Indeed, except for the Battle of the Bulge, the German army was never on offense again.

 

According to legend, Rome fell on June 4. Winston Churchill’s beginning of the end for the Axis was on June 6, 1944. Is a frontal assault wise? No, but this one just happened to work and as a result became forever etched in history, and in the immortal words of Ronald Reagan, who made a speech at Normandy de rigueur for succeeding presidents.

 

Reagan was accompanied that day by his old friend and aide Franklyn “Lyn” Nofziger, who on June 6, 1944, was a young Army Ranger scaling the cliffs of Omaha Beach, where the Americans were attacking. Lyn survived to become my good friend, but I was always impressed by how understated he was about his service, especially about the two fingers on one hand that were missing, having been carried away by Nazi shrapnel on that fateful day.

 

Lyn once recollected for me bouncing up and down in his landing craft as it approached the beach, filled with seasick soldiers, and how the bottom of the craft was ankle-deep in puke.

 

It was a huge logistical undertaking — the largest ever — and the preparation involved, all told, some 2.7 million soldiers, sailors, and airmen for the 160,000 to launch the actual assault using more than 11,000 planes and several thousand ships at sea as well. The Allies had determined they needed to land at five different beaches in the north of France to gain a toehold on the European continent.

 

This military campaign was the turning point in the war against the Nazi regime. As troops led by the American military took the beaches in France, the invasion sent a powerful message to the leaders in Berlin and Tokyo that the United States would always be there to protect her allies and be a force for good against tyranny and oppression.

 

There was no moral ambiguity between the Nazis and the Allies. They were evil, they exterminated Jews and other undesirables, and we — the Allies — were good. We were on a mission to destroy evil and save innocent people. As President Reagan said on that D-Day anniversary in 1984:

 

Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there.

 

The D-Day invasion was the largest military operation undertaken in history, with naval, aerial, and land assaults. The victory on the beaches of Normandy allowed the Allied forces to move in the manpower and weapons that would liberate France and the rest of Europe, defeat Hitler’s powerful army, and liberate Jews imprisoned in concentration camps.

 

President Reagan paid homage:

 

These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.

 

Four decades after D-Day, on that sacred ground, Reagan commemorated the attack and honored the sacrifices made by the heroes that day, while America was facing a different adversary in the Soviet Union, which held most of Eastern Europe in the grip of communism. In addition to solemnly paying tribute to the 4,000 who died on that day, Reagan renewed America’s promise to carry on the legacy of those valiant men.

 

Reagan used that speech to reassure our allies in attendance, as well those who were suffering under communism:

 

We are bound today by what bound us 40 years ago, the same loyalties, traditions, and beliefs. We’re bound by reality. The strength of America’s allies is vital to the United States, and the American security guarantee is essential to the continued freedom of Europe’s democracies. We were with you then; we are with you now. Your hopes are our hopes, and your destiny is our destiny.

 

President Reagan’s powerful remarks showed both strength and humility. He not only lauded the achievements of the brave American servicemen but also honored the sacrifice of the British, Canadian, French, and Polish heroes who ended the war. His brief speech was filled with “we” and “our” to unite and inspire all the people of the free world.

 

The Great Communicator knew that it was crucial to remind leaders in Washington, London, and Paris, as well as in East Berlin and Moscow, that America would not allow attacks on freedom and democracy to go unanswered.

 

Unfortunately, that type of leadership is not present in the commander in chief 40 years later. I’ve written six books on Ronald Reagan, including my new book, The Search for Reagan. As a veteran of the Reagan campaigns and, briefly, of the White House Conference on Small Business, I witnessed many of Reagan’s speeches, including those at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, which my wife, Zorine, used to run. She is also a battle-tested veteran of the Reagan wars. Many of Reagan’s speeches touched our minds and hearts. So it was with his Normandy speech. It was haunting. It was evocative. It was powerful. It was brave. It was principled.

 

Many still choke up when they hear this speech, including Zorine and me. Maybe it is because my cousin Linda and I come from a Greatest Generation family. Both my grandmothers were Rosie the Riveters: One tested machine guns and the other was a bomb inspector. Our grandfather tried to enlist three times, but he had poor eyesight and was 40 years old with four dependents. So, he became a civil-defense block captain. Our fathers were too young, so they distributed morale posters to public places. (“Loose Lips Sink Ships.”) My mother, also a youngster, had a victory garden. And our uncle, Ellsworth “Barney” Shirley, made the ultimate sacrifice. A radioman on a TBF-1 Avenger, he was shot down and killed on his 20th birthday in January 1945.

 

We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but 40 years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon.

 

We have a current president in Joe Biden who struggles to make it through a teleprompter speech about the military or any other solemn subject. He neither inspires loyalty in our allies nor fear in our adversaries. In fact, his words and countenance do the opposite. Our allies in Afghanistan and Israel know they cannot count on the United States for defense, and Russia, China, and Iran can act with impunity.

 

In Reagan’s diary, the day earned a long entry. In character, he mostly talked about the time and the men and not much about himself: “It was an emotional experience for everyone.” He did say he had difficulty getting through his speech. He also wrote about how he and Nancy later walked among the “row on row” of white cenotaphs where Allied soldiers had been buried, both Christians and Jews. “That was the heartbreaker.” There were no atheists that day on the beaches of Normandy.

 

Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for.

 

The power of the bully pulpit has eluded Biden, but Reagan acted as if he invented it. He always hit the right note and knew the right thing to say. He knew how to use the perfect words. As Mark Twain once said, “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’Tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”

 

All of these men were part of a rollcall of honor with names that spoke of a pride as bright as the colors they bore.

 

He concluded powerfully:

 

Strengthened by their courage, heartened by their value [valor], and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.

 

Understandably, there wasn’t a dry eye at Pointe du Hoc that day after Reagan concluded his remarks. His words perfectly summed up what was at stake: This was a battle for civilization itself. A struggle between good and evil. But goodness cannot survive without heroes to protect and defend it. As General Omar Bradley, one of the architects of the successful invasion, said, “Every man who set foot on Omaha Beach that day was a hero.”

 

On that day in Normandy 40 years ago, Reagan used the right words, struck the right tone, and thus captured historical lightning in a bottle.

 

Later that day, at a reception marking the occasion, Reagan said, “We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free.”